People rely on disposable absorbent articles in their everyday lives, including such garments as adult incontinence products, enuresis pants, training pants, and diapers. A plurality of such articles is typically provided together in a container, such as a flexible bag, for sale to consumers. Frequently, such articles are folded prior to packaging. One example of such folding is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,702,798 to Christoffel et al., the entirety of which is hereby incorporated by reference to the extent not inconsistent herewith.
Some existing disposable absorbent articles include absorbent cores comprised of fluff and/or superabsorbent polymer. Such cores can create bulk in the article. When the article is folded prior to packaging, this bulk can interfere with the folding process. For example, the bulk of the absorbent core can lead to inconsistent fold locations. When successively manufactured products are not folded in a consistent manner, the resulting package may in certain cases exhibit undesirable bulges or ripples, or may have inadequately “squared” corners. Furthermore, a lack of predictability in the location of folds in the absorbent cores may negatively impact the performance of the product by creating creases or cracks at inopportune locations within the absorbent core of the product. Finally, a lack of consistency in folding can lead to undesirable waste or delay in the manufacturing process, such as when poorly folded articles cause jams in the machinery.
Consequently, what is needed is an improved method of manufacturing folded disposable absorbent articles that has the potential to provide more consistent processability, that has the potential to create more consistent final packages in terms of smoothness and squareness, and that has the potential to minimize negative impact on product performance.